Something that I have talked about before is my fear of baking. The act of relinquishing control over how things are cooked scare me because you can’t make instantaneous changes to the food as you go along. Once it’s in, its in. No going back. For this reason I believe that baking is an art and something I stay away from for most of the times (this, and my oven always breaks down every time we use it). However, last week I saw my friend Naomi’s Snap Story with these drool worthy cookies from NYC and I commented saying, “I could make them better.” As expected, Naomi encouraged me to try and here we are! 

I was pretty excited with this challenge. It gave me an opportunity to buy some new cookware, enhance my baking prowess, and also get that stupid oven fixed. I spent most of my free time (i.e. my 3 hour commute back and forth from work) looking up recipes to try and mimic. I started with tasty which tbh used too much butter and 400grams of chocolate for 12 cookies which is basically diabetes on a plate. I then tried to understand the different kind of cookies through Martha Stewart’s Kitchen Conundrums (thin and crisp, gooey, and cakey). I chose to make the gooey ones because those reminded me the most of Insomnia Cookies which are one my favorite desserts in the whole world (tiramisu, and Jeni’s come first and second though). From NYTimes Cooking, I learned about chilling the dough in order to cool the butter which reduces the spread of the dough and retains the lift. Lastly, Donal Skehan taught me that baking powder puffs and baking soda spreads (here we needed baking soda). 

This knowledge helped me create a recipe of my own. I used light brown sugar over dark in order to reduce the sweetness, and added some coffee powder to infuse a little mocha taste into the cookie. It took some time and a whole set of failed tries before I got this right. This first batch was burnt and spread to make one giant cookie to a small batch that looked good enough to be pictured. After working on these the whole Sunday, my final batch actually came out pretty well. I increased the heat on the bottom filament of the oven which helped the bottom create a crust allowing the gooey top to not crumble the dessert. Et voila, it worked! 

I don’t know what Naomi’s cookie tasted like but I think this was a good try and an easy cookie dough recipe for most of us. Nomez, make a batch and let me know how you like them! For everyone else, please like, share, comment, and if you have a challenge for me, let me know!! 

Ingredients

Makes 24 cookies

2 1/4 cups of flour 

1/2 teaspoon baking soda 

236 grams unsalted butter 

1 cup light brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar 

1 teaspoon salt 

2 large eggs 

2 cups of semi sweet chocolate ( I used a mix of dark chocolate and semi sweet cooking chocolate) 

1 teaspoon of vanilla essence 

2 teaspoon instant coffee 

Preparation 

Step 1

Cream together butter and sugar until mixed well. 

Step 2 

Mix dry ingredients: flour and baking soda. Mix the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients and mix well. 

Step 3 

Add vanilla essence, eggs, coffee, chocolate, and salt.

Step 4 

Put the mix into the fridge for a minimum of 1 hour and maximum of 2 hours.

Step 5 

Preheat the oven for 190 Celsius (350 Fahrenheit). Make 1 tablespoon scoops on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and stick in the oven for 10 minutes or until the sides of the cookies are browned. 

Step 6 

Remove the cookies from the oven, leave out for about 30 minutes to cool off and Enjoy!